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Amid faltering odds that became apparent during three days of debate, British Prime Minister Theresa May has, at least temporarily, withdrawn her much-maligned Brexit plan from Parliamentary voting consideration.

The European Union is attempting to boost access to critical business information throughout the bloc with separate initiatives to link the business registers and insolvency registers of the 28 Member States. The first phase, which was completed this week, includes a new requirement for registers to provide documentation from limited liability corporations within 21 days. EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn said, "Access to cross-border insolvency information is crucial for a well-functioning internal market and European area of justice."

The European Banking Authority has issued a warning to financial institutions, advising them to refrain from buying, holding, or selling virtual currencies until a regulatory regime is in place. That opinion comes after uncovering more than 70 specific risks from the unregulated type of currency that could affect users, non-user market participants, and the financial institutions themselves. Inside, a look at the EBA's potential plan for virtual currency regulation.

The European Commission last week unveiled a set of guidelines with an eye toward standardizing key aspects of service level agreements for cloud computing. The guidelines, prepared by the Cloud Select Industry Group's subgroup on SLAs, call for standardized vocabulary and metrics to be used by cloud providers. Given the flexible nature of cloud computing spanning multiple jurisdictions, cloud users face differences due to various legal requirements concerning data protection and other issues. Users also are hampered by differing terminology and metrics used by service providers. The working group stressed its efforts are targeted at business users of the cloud rather than consumers.

Internal Markets and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier is urging the European Commission to give central counterparties from five nations outside the bloc the authority to clear EU derivatives trades. In order to implement the G20's blueprint for global derivatives regulations, Barnier is proposing the European Commission adopt equivalence decisions for CCPs from Japan, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, and India to clear EU trades. Barnier said the move would be done "in full deference" to the rules and supervisory regimes of those countries, with more countries expected to follow.

The head of the European Securities and Markets Authority, speaking at a recent event, said the European Union is about halfway through an unprecedented wave of regulatory reform in the wake of the financial crisis, but more work is needed. ESMA Chairman Steven Maijoor reassured attendees of the International Capital Markets Association conference that he was not referring to new regulations, but rather complementary efforts to help implement regulations passed in recent years. To ensure those reforms succeed, he said, the European Union especially needs the implementation of a single rulebook for financial markets with "supervisory convergence" between the bloc's 28 Member States.

Financial officials in the United Kingdom are getting ready to launch a new regulator to oversee the £75 trillion ($126 trillion) payment systems industry next April. The Payment Systems Regulator, authorized by banking reform legislation in 2013, was incorporated last month as a subsidiary of the Financial Conduct Authority. The goals of the new regulator will be to boost competition and innovation in the sector, which handles an estimated 7 billion transactions a year. Hannah Nixon will be the regulator's first managing director.

European Parliament last week approved a law to make it easier for companies or individuals harmed by cartel activity or other antitrust violations to seek damages throughout the bloc. Lawmakers said the law will give victims better access to information necessary to prove their claims and more time to do so. While redress from antitrust violations is theoretically possible already, lawmakers said practically speaking it was difficult for victims to seek redress in all but a few Member States due to discrepancies in national laws. The law also protects companies that act as whistleblowers in cartel cases, which are often crucial to unveiling the schemes, by limiting their liability and protecting confidentiality. The EU Council of Ministers needs to give final approval to the law, but Member States already have agreed to it informally.

The European Commission this week approved a corporate governance package giving shareholders veto power over directors' pay levels. The so-called "say on pay" provision is included in the commission's proposed Shareholder Rights Directive, and calls for a binding vote on a company's remuneration policy every three years, supplemented by annual advisory votes. The policy would be required to include a maximum level of pay as well as information on the ratio between executive compensation and other company employees.

After a five-year delay in accepting a European Union law requiring automatic sharing of tax information, Austria and Luxembourg announced last week they would drop their objections to the law. The softening of their position means the anti-tax evasion measure is now ready to move forward throughout the bloc. Leaders of the two nations said they agreed to go forward after receiving assurances from other EU counterparts that quick conclusions would be sought to deals with Switzerland and four other non-EU countries to bring similar rules to fruition there. Austria and Luxembourg's previous objections related to the lack of similar laws in Switzerland and other tax havens.

European Parliament backed tougher anti-money laundering regulations, this week, which would require companies, trusts, foundations, and holdings to disclose their ultimate beneficial owners in public registers housed in each member state of the EU. The legislation also calls on banks, auditors, accountants, and others to step up their vigilance of suspicious transactions, and expands the definition of politically-exposed person to include domestic as well as foreign persons.

Companies that run afoul of coming new European Union regulations on data protection and security would face fines of up to €100 million, under a reform package approved by European Parliament this week. Members of parliament overwhelmingly approved the reforms, which still require negotiation with the European Council and European Commission. Parliament's package also includes the requirement that companies also must clearly explain privacy policies and honor requests to erase individuals' personal data.

Similar to restrictions in the United State's controversial Volcker rule, which it drew upon, the European Commission on Wednesday proposed new rules to prohibit its biggest banks from engaging in proprietary trading. Supervisors would be empowered to require banks to separate risky trading activities from their deposit-taking business if those activities could threaten financial stability.

As the 2013 deadline nears for foreign banks and others to strike a deal with the Internal Revenue Service to monitor accounts held by U.S. citizens, confusion remains about exactly which companies must comply with the law. "Until companies really pull up their sleeves and take a hard look at all the necessary changes, they won't realize the impact," says Laurie Hatten-Boyd, a principal at KPMG.